Hiring a developer or an agency? Managing one and not sure the work is good? Facing a technical decision you can't fully evaluate yourself?
Get independent advice from an engineer with 25+ years of experience.
Every engagement starts with a session, so the first step is the same whichever you need. If you need implementation and I'm not the right fit, I'll refer you to engineers I trust.
Most technical mistakes don't look like mistakes when you make them. They look like reasonable choices, until they compound.
"Build me an app like X" is not a spec. Without one, every disagreement later is your word against the developer's, and you pay for the rework.
Agencies optimize for billable hours. A demo that looks finished can hide a codebase that nobody else can maintain. Someone on your side should look before the final invoice.
Confident people interview well. A small paid trial task tells you more than three conversations, if you know what to look for in the result.
Building for a million users when you have fifty. You burn budget solving problems that don't exist yet, and the simple version would have shipped months earlier.
Choosing a framework, model provider, or vector database because it's in the news, not because it fits your use case. Switching costs are brutal.
Running Kubernetes and multi-region setups when a single managed instance would do. I've seen startups pay ten times what they need to.
Investors will ask. Better to find the gaps yourself than to have them surfaced in diligence.
Helped a business owner hire a developer and a designer: wrote the job posts, vetted the candidates, structured the statement of work, and reviewed the delivered work before each payment.
Helped a founder avoid ~$50K in projected infrastructure costs by correcting architecture assumptions before implementation began.
A software product for holiday-lighting installers was taking off and falling over daily. Rebuilt it on an architecture that could carry the growth, then handed it to a lower-cost team to maintain.
I'm Kirubakaran Athmanathan. I've been building software for 25+ years, from microcontrollers to large-scale distributed systems, at startups and at companies like Walmart and Evernote. I'm a full-stack generalist: backend, frontend, infrastructure, data, and AI. I've led engineering teams, hired a lot of developers, helped startups raise rounds, and rescued projects that were off track.
For the last five years I've been CEO of histre, an AI-native knowledge management platform I built from the ground up. So I've hired and managed developers, made every technical call with my own money on the line, and sat on the other side of the table when someone was pitching me.
I live and work in San Francisco. I take on a limited number of engagements, so each client gets real attention.
Book a session and fill out a short intake form. Send whatever you have: the proposal you received, the job post, a repo link, architecture notes, or just a list of questions. I review everything before we talk.
We meet for 90 minutes on video. I walk through what you've shared, pressure-test the key assumptions, and tell you what I actually think.
Within 48 hours you get a one-page summary: what I found, what I recommend, and what to do next. If you want me around for the hiring or the build, we talk about a retainer. If not, you have what you need.
No, it's the usual case. Most of my clients are business owners who need a technical person they can trust, not a technical person they have to manage.
Mostly I advise, and I keep advice and implementation separate so the advice stays honest. I do take on builds and fractional-CTO engagements when it's the right fit. Ask.
Whatever you have. A proposal, a quote, a job description, a repo link, a pitch deck, or a clear description of the decision in front of you. The intake form will guide you. Don't over-prepare; I'll ask for what I need.
Yes. Send it over before the session and I'll review and sign it.
If you have a real decision in front of you, yes: a first hire, a first build, an agency quote. If you're still validating the idea itself, it's probably too early.
A hire, a proposal, or a technical decision on your plate? Let's talk.
Or email me directly: [email protected]
